Flashback: St. Patrick’s Day 2000

It was so much fun reminiscing yesterday about our St. Patrick's Day float from 1997, we thought we'd share some other float memories the rest of the week. After all, St. Patrick's Day is one of our all-time favorite subjects!

Back in 2000, we built a pirate ship. That's probably one of the most expected floats we could build, and in fact we've build all kinds of variations of boats and ships through the years. This float was special for many reasons.

The pirate ship was long-time Friday bartender Heather's first float. In fact, it was her first real Sandbar experience. She didn't work here yet, but she'd been visiting the Sandbar and befriended Phil, who invited her to be on the float. Everyone loved her (of course!) and when Dave had an open shift she filled it, and the rest is history.

Another unique part of this float: rollerblading sharks. This was our future art director and his wife's first Sandbar float also. They volunteered to wear sharks on their helmets and rollerblade alongside the float, like sharks circling the ship. Both of them were exhausted the next day. We've never had rollerblading participants again, either.

We had pirates and wenches and cannons that shot puffs of air out the side of the ship. It was a big float compared to the ones we'd previously built…but it was only a sign of what was still to come.